THE STUMP APRIL 3, 2012
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The good news for Mitt Romney is that he comes out of Tuesday night with a boatload of delegates and a symbolically important win in Wisconsin, where it was once tempting to imagine Rick Santorum pulling off an upset. It's all but certain that Romney will become the GOP nominee, and that he’ll do it by nailing down the 1144 delegates he officially needs before this summer's convention.
The bad news for Romney is that his Wisconsin win probably wasn’t solid enough to drive Santorum from the race before May, when there are a number of Southern contests—Arkansas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Texas—that he's likely to steal from the de facto nominee. Which, suffice it to say, isn’t exactly the visual Romney wants heading into a general election against an increasingly formidable incumbent.
The problem is that, coming into Wisconsin, the polls showed Romney carrying the state by about eight points. The actual margin was more like four. A decisive Romney win might have given Santorum second thoughts about carrying the fight to Pennsylvania, his home state, which votes on April 24. Instead, Santorum is now likely to enjoy a trace of momentum heading into the state (barely perceptible to most of us; tsunami-like within the Santorum campaign), and even more coming out of it.
Why does this matter if Romney’s going to be the nominee anyway? Just look at what happened in Wisconsin in the run-up to the primary and it becomes pretty clear. Romney spent the previous four days touring the state with its iconic conservative congressman, Paul Ryan. And while this surely boosted his prospects on election day, it just as surely dented them for November. Thanks in part to all those hours Romney spent mugging it up with Ryan in diners and VFW halls, and reassuring voters that the two men share a worldview, the radical House Republican budget—the one the Obama campaign is practically panting over—is now plausibly known as the “Ryan-Romney” budget.
One can imagine Romney trying to tether himself to other conservative icons in other primary states so long as he’s got Santorum to fend off and right-wingers to prove himself to. There’s the arch-conservative senator Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania (who recently vouched for Romney’s bona fides but stopped short of endorsing him), and John Cornyn in Texas (who’s also yet to endorse but has intimated it’s time to line up behind Romney). The longer the campaign goes on, the more Romney has to whisper sweet nothings into the ears of such nationally polarizing figures, and the less time he has to etch-a-sketch away those rough edges for the general.
For the sake of his chances against Barack Obama, then, it would have been far, far better to dispatch with Santorum tonight. But, as we’ve come to expect these last three months, Republicans weren’t ready to pull the trigger.
Update, April 4: Strangely, Romney's lead went from under 5 points with 97, 98 percent of precincts reporting to over 7 points with 100 percent reporting. I'm not entirely sure what happened, and it definitely cuts against my thesis--hard to see Santorum getting even the mildest of boosts out of this result. On the other hand, the basic point still stands: This was not the sort of expectation-beating victory that would have abruptly bounced Santorum from the race. The question now is whether Romney competes aggressively in Pennsylvania to try to settle this thing or essentially concedes it to Santorum, along with the handful of southern states that follow.
Follow me on twitter: @noamscheiber
10 comments
Will there be any Romney left after he finishes spreading himself so thin?
- skahn
April 4, 2012 at 12:17am
I hope Santorum doesn't quit. The more Romney has to appear in public with Paul Ryan or any other polarizing Republican, the better it is for Obama. Stay in there, Sticky Ricky!
- magboy47.
April 4, 2012 at 2:17am
I am beginning to see Romney's caricature strategy. He plans to paint President Obama as an anti free enterprise. socialist and then run against that. I remember when H.W. Bush referred to Dukakis as the "L word" to cast the term liberal as an aspersion. There is a vulnerability in claiming that free enterprise is the hero in our recent decline and that government is the antagonist. I think the President has learned a lot and hope to see an effective campaign against attempts to paint him into a corner.
- Nusholtz
April 4, 2012 at 8:12am
Noam, Pat Toomey might be a polarizing figure in the Beltway, but as a relatively recent Senator-elect who is not part of the Senate leadership, his approval rating in Pennsylvania is a fairly decent 42% according to latest polls (though his "strongly unfavorable" rating is fairly high at 21%). As with most politicians who have not yet built up a national or state-wide reputation, their approval ratings rise and fall with the fortunes of the state-wide economy and general satisfaction with Congress. As such, Toomey is actually more popular in Pennsylvania than Santorum (who is an established political figure in PA going back nearly 20 years) and Governor Tom Corbett (who has run into controversy with budgets that significantly slash school funding and a consistent refusal to impose new taxes or meaningful regulation on the Marcellus Shale industry). Suffice it to say that appearances by Romney with Toomey would not carry the same negative message to general election voters, in PA or elsewhere, than appearances by Romney with a national political figure like Paul Ryan.
- wildboy
April 4, 2012 at 10:55am
Romney is like that jar of 'Vegemite' that some unknown relative gave you in a Christmas gift pack several years ago. It has sat in the back of cupboard for years as you moved it around to make room for the jars of jalapeno pepper jelly, artichoke hearts, Nutella, the box of McVities you bought on a whim at World Market, and the jar of crunchy peanut butter. Heck...you've even packed it and moved it with you from the last house because you felt a bit guilty about throwing out some 'perfectly good' food item. "Waste not, want not" Grammy always told you when she fed you left over creamed beans. So it's a gorgeous Sunday morning and deciding to take your coffee and toast out on the porch to eat you realize you haven't been to the store in weeks. You've been so distracted with the excitement of your new post-apocalyptic computer game - Land of Liberty that you have literally eaten through much of everything in your cupboards until you're left with that jar of Vegemite and the heels of the stale loaf of your favorite brand of white bread - 'Bunny'. You frantically search the cupboards one more for anything that you can spread on your toast - butter, garlic powder, Ajax, mustard, A1 steak sauce - anything but the Vegemite you've dreaded trying out all of these years. But finally you give in and accept your fate that the only thing left to spread on your now burnt toast is that jar of Vegemite. Despite it being 4 years past the 'use by date' you have no other alternatives but to crack the jar open. You've savored all of the other condiments in your house and you have a gnawing pit of dread that it won't be like your other toast spreadables. You stir the jar and slowly, with tears streaming down your face, spread that dark, bitter and salty tasting spread upon your toasted heels. You take a bite and the bland flavors of your 'Sunday in America' breakfast fill your mouth, dry as it is. You wash the first bite down with a cup of lukewarm coffee and swallow with some effort. Resigning yourself to admit that it's really not that bad even if it's not sweet or spicy, a bit bitter and salty, and the texture is odd and you've got nothing in common with this strange spread from a strange land. You walk outside and as the birds chirp amongst themselves and the bees begin their mid-morning dance with the cherry blossoms, you finish your Vegemite toast and coffee. Accepting the fate you have given yourself. You promise to go to the store soon but first you'll just have to finish that jar of Vegemite now that you've opened it. Remembering your grandmother's favorite saying as you wash down another bite.
- singlspeed
April 4, 2012 at 11:26am
Singlespeed, that was classic -- reminds me of the sorely missed williamyard.
- wildboy
April 4, 2012 at 12:58pm
Thanks wildboy. I do miss Mr. Yard. His posts brought much needed levity to TNR.
- singlspeed
April 4, 2012 at 2:27pm
Romney will survive this. If you cut off his head, another one will grow back. The first head was a moderate, then a conservative and so on. But know this. No matter what head shows up in the general, they all use the same garage car elevator, even if each one is using a different Cadillac.
- Nusholtz
April 4, 2012 at 3:15pm
singlespeed, I echo wildboy!
- ironyroad
April 4, 2012 at 6:21pm
wildboy: so get a twofer and make the phrase, say, the "Ryan-Toomey-Romney" budget. Radicalize Romney and start tarring Toomey for the next Senate campaign.
- cspencef
April 4, 2012 at 7:27pm